The Tories are no longer the party of ‘Church & King’ & the invented traditions of Royalty are fading
As the Sunday Times notes on its front page (11 Sept) the numerous traditions associated with the death of Queen Elizabeth and the appointment of King Charles III are mainly an exercise in box ticking. Things that happen for no genuine reason beyond the point that at some stage they were invented.
The historian David Edgerton has written in the Observer that the Tories are no longer the party of ‘Church and Constitution’. That was certainly what the Yeomanry at Peterloo supported and ‘Church and King’ was the core raison d’etre of the Tory Party when it was formed in the modern sense in the early 1830s.
Edgerton points to a particular slip to underline the change in the Tory Party:
Another telling sign was given by our new prime minister. Having just kissed the hands of the dying monarch, she eulogised her wrongly. Speaking from outside Downing Street, Liz Truss said the late Queen “was the very spirit of Great Britain”. Clearly, no one in Downing Street knew to advise the notionally unionist Truss that her late Majesty was Queen of the whole undivided United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
He suggests that the invented traditions of Royalty mean little to non-Tory younger generations and the monarchy if it is to survive will have to do so on a more modest scale. Perhaps, unless of course Labour is now the party of Church and King
David Edgerton in the Observer
Inventing tradition
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